Facebook harvested the email contacts of 1.5 million users without their knowledge or consent when they opened their accounts.

Since May 2016, the social-networking company has collected the contact lists of 1.5 million users new to the social network, Business Insider can reveal. The Silicon Valley company said the contact data was “unintentionally uploaded to Facebook,” and it is now deleting them.

The revelation comes after pseudononymous security researcher e-sushi noticed that Facebook was asking some users to enter their email passwords when they signed up for new accounts to verify their identities, a move widely condemned by security experts. Business Insider then discovered that if you entered your email password, a message popped up saying it was “importing” your contacts without asking for permission first.

At the time, it wasn’t clear what was happening – but on Wednesday, Facebook disclosed to Business Insider that 1.5 million people’s contacts were collected this way and fed into Facebook’s systems, where they were used to improve Facebook’s ad targeting, build Facebook’s web of social connections, and recommend friends to add.

Why do the police always take Zuck’s word about these “inadvertent” mistakes? Smells kind of like theft to me. 1.5 million consecutive 1-year prisons sentences should do as punishment.

Anyhow, I’ll bet it was more than 1.5 million and it was more than just email contacts. If, for some strange, low-IQ reason, you’re still on FB, do at least check your “secret” file to find out exactly what they admit they have on you.

Strike that… If you’re still on the Zuckbook, then just keep looking at those pics and “reading” all those worthy Russian trolling attempts. You don’t need privacy nor need you be worried about anyone invading it; small minds aren’t worth reading.

The upstart nation was a den of intellectual piracy. One of its top officials urged his countrymen to steal and copy foreign machinery. Across the ocean, a leading industrial power tried in vain to guard its trade secrets from the brash young rival.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the rogue nation was the United States. The official endorsing thievery was Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. And the main victim was Britain.

How times have changed.

Now, the United States accuses China of the very sort of illicit practices that helped America leapfrog European rivals two centuries ago and emerge as an industrial giant.

At first glance, I thought the story was about the Barbary Pirates. Had the whole thing been a CIA-driven false flag?! Heck, could be. It could be that Hamilton helped stage the “Revolution” as a power grab in order to build his new strong central government. Anything’s possible.

Nine states have passed laws over the past year allowing police or household members to seek court orders requiring people deemed threatening to temporarily surrender their guns, bringing the total to 14. Several more are likely to follow in the months ahead.

More than 1,700 orders allowing guns to be seized for weeks, months or up to a year were issued in 2018 by the courts after they determined the individuals were a threat to themselves or others, according to data from several states obtained by The Associated Press. The actual number is probably much higher since the data was incomplete and didn’t include California.

The laws gained momentum after it was learned that the young man accused in the Florida attack, Nikolas Cruz, was widely known to be mentally troubled yet had access to weapons, including the assault-style rifle used to kill 17 students and staff members last Valentine’s Day at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

This is probably big with soccer mom and teevee watchers. Why stop with seizing only guns? To protect the children, is there anything not worth stealing??

***Note*** I’ve got a lot of drafts sitting around, some in existence and unpublished since 2013. It became obvious to me that I’m in no hurry to get around to them. But, they’ve survived various draft purges over the years. If they’re that important I can just come back and elaborate later. For now, I offer them, kind of as-is, in this, a lightning publishing round. The fun will continue while supplies last. Make of these what you will. Or not. I don’t care.

Follow up after Structuring. Or not, so it seems. You should know where I stand on this issue by now – theft, pure and simple. As an attorney, I used to work with a CA-based organization dedicated to defeating the practice. I’ve lost touch with them and with their linkage. But, I assume they’re still working hard for us. Use your Google, if you will.

The Supreme Court left little doubt Wednesday that it would rule that the Constitution’s ban on excessive fines applies to the states, an outcome that could help an Indiana man recover the $40,000 Land Rover police seized when they arrested him for selling about $400 worth of heroin.

A decision in favor of 37-year-old Tyson Timbs, of Marion, Indiana, also could buttress efforts to limit the confiscation by local law enforcement of property belonging to someone suspected of a crime. Police and prosecutors often keep the proceeds.

Timbs was on hand at the high court for arguments that were largely a one-sided affair in which the main question appeared to be how broadly the state would lose.

The court has formally held that most of the Bill of Rights applies to states as well as the federal government, but it has not done so on the Eighth Amendment’s excessive-fines ban.

Justice Neil Gorsuch was incredulous that Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher was urging the justices to rule that states should not be held to the same standard.

“Here we are in 2018 still litigating incorporation of the Bill of Rights. Really? Come on, general,” Gorsuch said to Fisher, using the term for holding that constitutional provisions apply to the states.

Justice Stephen Breyer said under Fisher’s reading police could take the car of a driver caught going 5 mph (8 kph) above the speed limit.

“Anyone who speeds has to forfeit the Bugatti, Mercedes or special Ferrari, or even jalopy,” Breyer said.

Fisher agreed.

It was unclear whether the justices also would rule to give Timbs his Land Rover back or allow Indiana courts to decide that issue. Some justices seemed willing to take that additional step.

“If we look at these forfeitures that are occurring today … many of them are grossly disproportionate to the crimes being charged,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

Yes, looking at all forfeitures occurring today, there is a huge problem. Thank you, wise Latina woman. ‘Cold Water’ Roberts was along with … cold water though, in a way, he might be right. But the problems are so many with these issues.

First, forget the anti-incorporation argument, libertarians. It’s as settled a matter as the fate of the nation. They will formally allow application of the 8th, through the 14th, to and against the States.

Second, as always, hard cases make bad law. No one likes a dope dealer. And there are 10,000 more noble poster children available. On the other hand, why is selling dope a crime (okay to be libertarian, here, still)?

Third, while the excessive fines per se or construed are an important issue in prosecuted criminal cases, the worse issue is the outright theft via “civil” forfeiture. They literally take your stuff – without even a solid accusation of wrongdoing – and keep it barring the jumping of many flaming hoops. The States, most of them, make a mint of this theft, the only criminal activity being committed by the government.

Fourth, it’s not just the States. Uncle Sucker is as guilty as any. Few raise any alarm and many (don’t let the door hit you, Sessions) rabidly defend the practice.

However the Court rules in Timbs, it will be some little good. Unfortunately, a lot of good is needed. We may never fully see it.

Take what you can get, freedom lovers. Take a hike, government thieves.

So, unfortunately, this article ends with a bitter insight: Sound economic reasoning will come to the conclusion that the fiat money scheme – represented and upheld by the banking cartel – contributes, and necessarily so, to income and wealth inequality within society.4 It is one source of widening the gap between the rich and the poor. By all standards, fiat money must be considered socially unjust. The same applies to the collusion between central banks and private banks.

So what is to be done? The solution is straightforward: Establish a free market in money, shut down central banks, dismantle the banking cartel. As Murray Rothbard says: “[A]bolish the Federal Reserve System, and return to the gold standard, to a monetary system where a market-produced metal, such as gold, serves as the standard money, and not paper tickets printed by the Federal Reserve.”5 Perhaps the debate about growing inequality helps to rehabilitate our money system — something economic insights have failed to achieve so far.

There also remains what to do with all the debts – public and private – all based on the fiat. The solution there is simple and legal (and as unlikely to occur as the other suggestions): cancel it and then make future usurious machination illegal. Then there’s punishing certain parties for their crimes against humanity and the invisible hand. A problem is that the “debate” about inequality is really no more than socialists screeching for more of the same while real, affected victims stare at screens.

And they don’t even need to “reform” the law to seize the land, they just do it – NOW.

THE South African government has begun the process of seizing land from white farmers.

Local newspaper City Press reports two game farms in the northern province of Limpopo are the first to be targeted for unilateral seizure after negotiations with the owners to purchase the properties stalled.

While the government says it intends to pay, owners Akkerland Boerdery wanted 200 million rand ($18.7 million) for the land — they’re being offered just 20 million rand ($1.87 million).

“Notice is hereby given that a terrain inspection will be held on the farms on April 5, 2018 at 10am in order to conduct an audit of the assets and a handover of the farm’s keys to the state,” a letter sent to the owners earlier this year said.

Akkerland Boerdery obtained an urgent injunction to prevent eviction until a court had ruled on the issue, but the Department of Rural Development and Land Affairs is opposing the application.

“What makes the Akkerland case unique is that they apparently were not given the opportunity to first dispute the claim in court, as the law requires,” AgriSA union spokeswoman Annelize Crosby told the paper.

Imagine that, illegal actions in defiance of the existing law. One also might wonder where all the virtuous know-it-alls of the 1980’s are now. Remember them and apartheid? They’re absent, of course, at the moment. But they will chime in, heavily, in around five years when the famine and chaos hit SA hard. Will they play Sun City???

Family members of Richard Overton, the 112-year-old World War II veteran who lives in Austin, learned that his personal bank account had been drained on Friday.

“Someone set up a bogus account, got his Social Security number and accessed his personal checking account,” said Volma Overton, who is Overton’s third cousin.

According to Volma, whoever accessed the money used it to buy savings bonds with Treasury Direct, and has been doing so for a few months.

“This is going to be a setback for Richard,” Volma said. “It was a significant amount of money.”

Pure evil. Overton has other funds. I imagine he’ll be successful in recovering the looted money in short order. Still…

I’ve been toying with the idea that, as identity theft is akin to killing the original person, for legal and banking matters, etc., maybe the same penalty should apply. Identity murder? In this particular case, the killer should be sentenced to death by cigar torch. Single flame. Over maybe a month or two. Too harsh? If you’re in Dallas, ask Overton. I’ll defer to his judgment.

Everyone I know, with maybe one exception, that has journeyed to Cuban has been disappointed. Still, I foresee the cruise liner set will still keep going, still keep eating, drinking, “playing,” showing off the tats, gracing the rest with that not-so-unique American obesity. And, yeah, those Cubans from the man on the dock, wrapped in cellophane, in the plexiglass-topped box, are real – real in that they physically exist…

The United States government knows him as certified foreign claim number CU-2492. But he wants to make a more personal introduction to Tampa Bay.

He is Mickael Behn, a 43-year-old U.S. citizen residing in England, where he works in television production.

And, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, Behn is the rightful owner of Havana Harbor, the cruise ship terminal for Cuba’s capital city.

The harbor was taken from Behn’s family when the socialist government nationalized property without compensation.

So, Behn said, those who book a cruise from Port Tampa Bay to Havana support illegal activity. “This is an American crime on an American corporation,” he said. “Don’t go to Havana.”

The nonprofit Cuban Democratic Directorate recently put up billboards near Port Miami and is running radio ads that say those booking cruises to Cuba support the trafficking of stolen property.

How many damned offices, agencies, and programs can one government have?! Geeze.

Family from Cuba. Theft in Cuba. “American” living in England… I fail to see how this… Nevermind.

This case is especially interesting to a man whose family’s land was similarly confiscated by soldiers, at gunpoint, and without compensation. Do we get a claim? I think I already know the answer there. America and its laws are now for Cubans living in England. Got it.

It used to be a place for Englanders living in America. They’re, we’re completely out of fashion now. Even Laura Ingalls Wilder. She was an author. That is, for the new “Americans” and the tubby, tatted cruisers, someone who produces books. Books are the things they are tossing from libraries. Libraries are buildings taking up real estate needed for more sports watching venues, women’s African diversity centers, buffets, and tattoo shops.

Maybe the new editors at the WSJ can reinstitute some truth controls. There’s a glaring error in this story:

The Social Security program’s costs will exceed its income this year for the first time since 1982, forcing the program to dip into its nearly $3 trillion trust fund to cover benefits.

This is three years sooner than expected a year ago, partly due to lower economic growth projections, according to the latest annual report the trustees of Social Security and Medicare released Tuesday. The program’s income comes from tax revenue and interest from its trust fund.

The trust fund will be depleted in 2034 and Social Security will no longer be able to pay its full scheduled benefits unless Congress takes action to shore up the program’s finances. Without any changes, recipients then would receive only about three-quarters of their scheduled benefits from incoming tax revenues.

The report also said that Medicare’s hospital insurance fund would be depleted in 2026, three years earlier than anticipated in last year’s report. Absent changes, the program then would be able to handle 91% of costs.

The nation’s aging population is boosting the costs of Social Security and Medicare, while revenue gains lag due to slower growth in the economy and the labor force.

Where, exactly, is this $3 Trillion reserve fund, this “lockbox,” located? My guess would be in that D.C. museum with the Constitution, the dinos, and other things that don’t exist.

The “reserves” are but an accounting trick which, simply put, is just more debt for you and your kids to enjoy in the future.

There is probably some hidden truth in the story if one knows what to look for. Those dates in the late 20’s and early 30’s. Something else will probably fail around that time.